Chapter 381: At Eternity’s End
In case you aren’t able to tell yet just by how random my actions and words have been so far, I didn’t exactly anticipate myself having to fan the raging flames of a very angry fire bird-woman – so I was empty-handed, no speech, no plans... just me, myself and I.
I knew it, she knew it.
She even called me out on it.
“If all you have to give me is the power of friendship,” She warned, slowly pointing a finger over to the cliff’s edge once more. “You better hope it’ll be a touch more powerful than terminal velocity itself.”
There was always a brief window of time in-between responses, and I took one of those times to assess all the burnt marks I’ve sustained, most grievous of which were my hands, but then when I flipped my palms around over to my eyes – there was nothing there but smooth, unburned skin.
In here, it seems that pain was merely a short-term thing. You feel it only when you feel it, and it’s gone the exact moment it’s gone... if that makes any sense, which really doesn’t actually – but it did give away one crucial detail.
For all of her rage and anger funneled through her blistering flames, Ria had never meant to go out of her way to deliberately cause me harm. This was all just a dream, after all. Here, pain was only just a figment of the imagination... her imagination.
.....
Ria started to pace about. “Understand that there’s absolutely nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already told myself. I weighed my options, I gave it some thought, and I decided that the best place for me, for myself, is right here.”
“No, it isn’t,” I said at once. “You don’t even believe that yourself. If you do, then why am I here?”
“You’re here, because you forced yourself here.”
“I’ll rephrase, then,” I let my hands fall, my eyes meeting again with a piercing stare. “Why am I still here?”
“Stupid lines like that aren’t going to make you miraculously sprout wings when I throw you off the edge, Mr. One-liner,” She said. “My children are probably wondering what’s taking their mother so long to join them for lunch, and I really rather not keep them waiting any longer- so hurry it up already with what you want to say!”
“You don’t need them, Ria!” I shouted.
Beyond insensitive, beyond even heartlessness. I said those words knowing what they meant. That wasn’t me spouting nonsense at the heat of the moment. I knew what I said, and I meant what I said... and it worked.
For once, Ria grew quiet, and so I continued with what I had to say.
“You don’t need this. This world, this place, you don’t need it! I don’t know your kids, I don’t even know you completely, but is this really what they would have wanted for you? Living like a – ”
“You’re right, you don’t know them, so don’t you fucking dare put YOUR words in their mouths!”
“But you know them, Ria!” I retorted, no longer afraid of her flames ablaze. “So you think about what they’d say if they knew! Would they tell you any different than what I’ve been saying?! Would they really want their mother stuck living in a dreamworld pretending that she’s still there with them?”
“Pretending?”
“What would you call it then, Ria?” I asked, genuinely wanting to know her answer. “Because what this is, you can’t tell me that this is real.”
“You don’t think I know that?!”
“Then stop pretending already!” I took a heavy step towards her. “Wake up, Ria! Wake up!”
“No.”
I took another step forward. “Wake up!”
“I said no!”
“Why not?!” I asked, desperately having to restrain myself from wanting to shake her senseless back to her senses. “What’s there to be afraid of up there in the real world?! You won’t be alone up there, Ria! You never were! You’ll never be! You will – !”
“Don’t! Don’t start!” She said, marching forward and jabbing a finger furiously at me. “You’re going to tell me now that you’ll be there for me up there, aren’t you? That Irene will be? That all of you will be? That you’ll always be with me?”
“We will.”
“No, you won’t!” She shouted, swiped her arm through the air, ejecting a long wave of hot flames that had me retreating backward. When the blinding inferno dissipated and the view was again cleared, Ria was shaking. Every inch of her in a tremble, including her voice. “In the beginning, maybe... you’ll be there, you’ll all be there. But then what about after that? Years from now, decades – centuries?! I’ll still be there, I’ll always be there – but you all won’t because you will all be gone!”
Her words resounded far and wide in the vast boundless horizon. Her emotions echoed, and she directed everything at me – the anger, the sadness, and the utter feeling of despair – there was nothing that I didn’t hear.
“What do you want from me, huh? Just what exactly is it that you want me to do? Do you even know what you’re asking of me? After you go, what? Am I supposed to just go on and keep living my eternal existence repeating the process all over again, meeting new people, growing to care for them, growing to love them, and then having to lose them over and over and over and over again! EVERY! SINGLE! TIME?!
That’s when I finally understood her... that I finally realized that this wasn’t a matter of being unable to move on. That wasn’t the problem with Ria. This was about having no choice but to continue moving on and never being able to stop.
“It doesn’t get any easier after a thousand years, not even after two thousand years – It never gets easier!” There was more than just anger burning in her eyes, the way she looked at me then... with envy, with resentment, because I had something that she’ll never, ever possess. “You’ve never lost anybody, you’ve no right to tell me what is right and what isn’t! You don’t know how I feel, you’ll never know how I feel because you’ll never get to live long enough to even feel how I feel!”
I... I wanted to try and say something... but should I? Would I even know what to say? This thousand-year culmination of pent-up emotions and feeling bursting through the seams in a fiery outburst didn’t seem to be something that could be extinguished with just mere words.
“No, but wait – you’re the son of Terestra aren’t you?” She said derisively. “If you wanted to, you could live for as long as you want! That’s a thought! So how about it, Hero? Why not live forever alongside me? Would you do that for me? For a friend? Watching everyone you’ve ever cared about pass you by in a blink of an eye while you remain, while you continue to exist and they don’t. But that’s fine, isn’t it? Because we’ll always have each other, won’t we? Come on, why don’t we shake on it?”
Ria then shot her hand out in front of me, her eyes wide in challenge, as if goading me to raise my own... and for just a brief moment, I felt a twitch in my arm, a muscle tensing, an impulse I had to fight, but I didn’t know what exact;y I was fighting against, I didn’t know what I truly wanted to do.
Yet eventually, that impulse died away... and my hand remained at my side.
It was a while later, before she let her hand fall away, and for the first time, Ria actually smiled, subtly, sadly... nevertheless, it was still a smile, accompanied by a small sigh. “If you’ve actually taken my hand right then, I’d have burned it off of its socket for being a dumbass. Good to know that you can actually be a little bit selfish when you want, that’s good Nobody deserves to live forever. That’s not how the world works. Everything needs its ending. ”
“Even still, Ria,” I said, finally finding my voice. “Being here isn’t an ending. How is this an ending for you?”
“It isn’t,” She replied. “Before you asked me what exactly it is that I’m afraid of. Well now you know: up there, actually living, I’m afraid of the neverending. Constantly in fear of what happens after – when you’re gone, when everyone is. But in here, I’ll never have to worry about what happens after, I don’t worry about the neverending. Because here there is no after, there is no ending! In here, there’s only the here now... and forever. Just like me...”
Why? Why was it like this? Why was she making sense? Why was I understanding this?! I don’t want to sympathize with this! Why can I just keep thinking this was all wrong, that she was all wrong, that I was in the right? I am in the right!
Right?
“Ria...”
“But fine,” She interrupted, her stare losing its intensity, its fight. “You know, you’re holding the trump card here in this argument. I think you know that you do. All you have to do is say the words and you win, you get what you came here for.”
I pursed my lips, I knew what she was referring to. “I’m not going to – ”
“Why not?” Another interruption. “You order, and I obey. That’s how our relationship works, that’s how it’s always worked. You’ve done it before, you know how it works.”
“Forcing you is not convincing you,” I said in a rush before she could interrupt again. “When you leave, when you get out of here, you do it because you want to.”
“I thought I’ve already made it plenty clear,” She said, her head in a slow despondent shake. “I’m not getting out of here. I’m not leaving this place.”
“Ria...”
“The only way I am is if you tell me to. That’s the only way you’re going to get me out.”
There was that impulse again. A twitching in my lips I had to bar and restrain. She was goading me again, challenging me again, she was...
“Reverse psychology,” I said, breathing in deeply. “That’s your game now?”
“Fire with fire,” She shrugged, giving a faint smirk that fell away fast. “Go on, Hero. If you really feel like putting me through all that again, if you really want me to live and live and live that bad... then give me the order, you don’t even have to say it exactly – I’ll know what you mean. Just say the words once more. Tell me to wake up again, and I will.”
I swallowed heavily. “You’ll hate me.”
She nodded. “I will.”
No speech, no plans, just me, myself and I... and evidently, that was not enough.
“Or alternatively,” She raised her arm again, pointing once more to the cliff. “Be a friend to me, and just go.”
My eyes followed her finger to the vast endless drop, to the nothingness below, and once again the impulse was strong – but an impulse of what, I just didn’t know.
“It’s your choice.”
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺